Peter De Villiers insists he doesn't regret bringing a second-string squad to Australasia despite South Africa suffering a 39-20 mauling against the Wallabies in their Tri Nations rugby series opener.

But with 21 frontline players back at home, the Springboks coach admitted his inexperienced line-up were out of their depth as they started the World Cup build up with South Africa's heaviest loss in Australia in five years.

"I felt sorry for John (Smit) at one stage. To be the captain is one thing, but to have some leaders around you to calm down the new guys was non-existent," De Villiers said.

"I hope the lessons that they learned (included) the difference to play for your country at Test level and to play at Super 15 level is quite remarkable.

"(But) it's not by choice that we brought a lot of new guys here."

Despite conceding his Test rookies had been overwhelmed, De Villiers also felt the Wallabies were worthy of rich praise for their sparkling performance.

The Wallabies scored five tries to two and could have crossed for three or four more if not for final passes not finding their mark.

"They were quite brilliant. The decisions they made were quite spot on," the Boks coach said.

"Some people will say soft tries, but I say the decisions they made on turnover ball were quite brilliant."

Veteran skipper Smit felt all was not lost for the Springboks, who will back up on Saturday night against the All Blacks in Wellington.

"What I enjoyed about our younger side was that they chased to the death," said Smit.

"There were tries going begging out there for the Wallabies and there was a lot of guts chasing to make sure it didn't happen, and they are the things we can draw upon.

"We'll have to learn from this, let those guys take the experience in and then be pretty harsh on Monday in terms of what we trained for three weeks, but didn't quite execute well enough."

Smit, a 103-Test veteran, said his under-strength side deserved credit for not letting the scoreline blow out even further.

"It's more of an experience for those guys who haven't been out on this arena and just to feel the difference in speed and physicality," he said.

"Every game you lose is a confidence blow, I suppose, but a lot of these guys wouldn't have experienced Test rugby yet.

"Some of them haven't got more than 10 Test caps. If anything, it will be invaluable to those guys who haven't been around."

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